Category Archives: US-Mexican Border

Having a SENTRI border pass without a sentri-fied vehicle can be a challenge.

This was the scene Friday morning, 5:15AM at San Ysidro(Tijuana) Ready Lane. The lineup was backed up past the Nissan Dealership, but, 10 lanes available had me through in 35 minutes. That was good, as I had to catch an airplane ride out of San Diego.

Past 2 times at SY Ready, noticed of the 2 approach lanes, the right moves more quickly. That is subjective, but, looks like the left lane that curves harder left to spread to the 10 available booths has people hesitating and coin-flipping their perfect choice for a fast lane.

The right lane has fewer options and a less harsh left turn.

Six SENTRI, ten Ready and six regular lanes were available this Friday commute. There have been times that the regular lanes have been less crowded than Ready. This morning was not that way.

CBP guards have been very chatty with me. Today’s guy asked where I lived. The he asked me about the South Dakota license plate story. He was kind and my time anxiety was eased due to speed of today’s Ready Lane. Chatted with him for a minute and hauled to the airport for my first coffee of the day.

Doc, what’s the dif between those different lanes? Let your fingers hit the keyboard, boys and girls. I charge big bucks for my border expertise consulting.

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A recently released video shows a Tijuana teenager drinking a lethal dose of liquid methamphetamine while being questioned by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers.

Sixteen-year-old Cruz Marcelino Velázquez Acevedo died screaming and convulsing after he consumed the stimulant while in federal custody at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in November 2013. His family and the government agreed to a $1 million settlement in March.

According to the legal complaint, Velázquez told the officers that the amber-colored substance in the two bottles he brought across the border was apple juice he had purchased in Mexico.

The lawsuit alleged that “the two agents told a young man to drink the liquid to prove to them that it was fruit juice and not a drug,” Eugene Iredale, attorney for the teenager’s family, said in March. “He did that, and as a result, he died.”

The video, which first aired on ABC News, shows one officer move the bottle closer to Velázquez, who opens its cap and takes a sip. Seconds later the other officer gestured with his hand toward Velázquez and the teen took a second sip. He died two hours later in the emergency room at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center.

Government surveillance video shows border officers appeared to encourage, or at least allow, teen to drink from a bottle containing concentrated liquid methamphetamine.

Iredale said Velázquez was a high school student in Tijuana with no criminal record, and that it was believed that he was paid $100 to $200 to cross the border with the two bottles of drugs.

When Velázquez entered the country he told an officer he was headed to the United States to visit an uncle, and was sent to secondary screening by an officer, where he eventually drank the liquid.

Bajadock, Whee doggies, this will be thrilling! By my clock, 57 hours from 3AM on Saturday, September 23 is NOON on Monday, September 25. This means Otay and Tecate crossings southbound will take forever those 3 days.

Attention border crossers: For 57 hours in September, all cars will be barred from entering Tijuana through San Ysidro.

Lasting from Sept. 23 at 3 a.m. until noon on Sept. 25, the closure is part of a plan by the U.S. General Services Administration to realign a portion of Interstate 5. The operation launches the third and final phase of the $741 million expansion of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

The closure will affect tens of thousands of drivers, students, commuters, shoppers and others who regularly travel between San Ysidro and Tijuana, passing through the busiest border crossing in the Western Hemisphere.

Authorities are comparing the operation to Carmageddon, when a large swath of the busy Los Angeles I-405 Freeway was shut down for a weekend in 2011 for a highway expansion project.

In this case, the partial closure of I-5 at San Ysidro will cause all vehicle traffic crossing into Mexico during that period to be rerouted to Otay Mesa, where Mexico has only five inspection lanes.

“If you have to cross that weekend, plan on delays,” said Anthony Kleppe, a senior asset manager with the GSA.

At a forum hosted Monday by the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce and the South County Economic Development Council, Kleppe announced key dates for the massive project, which entails re-building the southernmost stretch of I-5 as it leads into Tijuana’s El Chaparral Port of Entry.

The project is scheduled for completion in June 2019, Kleppe told a crowd of several dozen residents, business owners, and government officials from both sides of the border.

The aim is to double the number of southbound lanes that feed into El Chaparral from five to ten. It will also involve adding eight more northbound inspection lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, bringing the total to 33. In addition, plans call for southbound vehicle inspection booths to be operated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors, and a secondary inspection area.

During the construction period, the northbound flow of vehicular traffic will not be affected, Kleppe said. Nor will the pedestrian crossings in both directions.

Bajadock: whattheheck was this thing? There are all sorts of electronic boxes throughout the canopy. Did they have a function? Brain wave scanner?

The 57-hour closure of the southbound vehicle lanes is necessary for the safe removal of a large steel and canvas canopy that currently covers a portion of the southbound car lanes, according to GSA. During that time, workers will also remove concrete crash barriers, and install infrastructure and temporary paving and striping.

“We start with a bang,” Kleppe said.

Following the closure, southbound lanes will be reduced from five to three for a two-month period. After that the plan calls for adding a fourth lane before Thanksgiving, and softening the current sharp 110-degree turn toward El Chaparral to 90 degrees. “It has a better curve, even though there are fewer lanes,” Kleppe said. GSA expects that as a result of the gentler curve, the flow of traffic will not change significantly from what it is today, despite the reduction in lanes.

Monday’s presentation was seen as the launching of an effort to get out the word about the closure and lane reductions. “As the message continues to go out, people are going to be able to plan their trips better,” said Efrain Ibarra, assistant director of the South County Economic Development Council.

“We hope to turn this into a positive,” said Jason Wells, executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce, where the fear is that a drop in traffic could mean loss of business.

Plans to hold a festival during the closure and promote pedestrian crossings “can make this an economic boost for us down here,” Wells said.

Mark Hainds put the toes of his hiking boots into the Pacific Ocean Thursday with the U.S.-Mexico border just off to his left — where it has been during his entire 700-mile journey.

“I dunno,” Hainds said, his clothes covered in dust and his face well-tanned and garnished with a scruffy beard. “It’s a weird thing. I should be feeling celebratory, but I haven’t figured it out.”

Since December, Hainds has hiked in two-week clips from El Paso, Texas, to Friendship Park at the southwestern edge of San Diego County. It was the culmination of a trip he started three years ago, also from El Paso, but headed east, along the Rio Grande to Brownsville, Texas, where the river flows into the Gulf of Mexico. He finished the first leg on Dec. 21, 2014, and started the second jaunt exactly two years later.

He’s one of the few people to hike the United States’ border with Mexico, and between the two legs of his trip, the views of that geopolitical boundary have shifted dramatically and promise to change the relationship between the two countries. On the campaign trail and now as president, Donald Trump pledged to build a wall along the border to prevent unauthorized immigration, hire 5,000 border patrol officers, and cancel or dramatically change the North American Free Trade Agreement, a deal that made it easier for cross-border business.

Hainds, who is 48 and from Alabama, said the change in politics was apparent when he talked to people along the way, many of them strangers who gave him food, took him in and gave him a place to rest for the night and tend to his feet.

“I guess the big thing was that nobody was talking too much about Trump, and nobody was talking about a wall in 2014,” he said. “And now, I think people have cordoned off more into camps. And still, the majority of people I meet are still against the wall, and further militarization of the border.”

Regardless of the thoughts of the people Hainds met as he hiked, for many miles of the trip, through all sorts of terrain and vegetation, was a wall. While the president has pledged to erect an extended partition between the United States and Mexico, for decades there has been some sort of barrier along portions of the border.

Hainds walked into Friendship Park with his wife and two children, who supported him along portions of the hike. As they reflected on the journey’s terminus, on the other side of a tall brown fence that extends into the Pacific, sunbathers sprawled out on a Tijuana beach as others played in the surf with their dog. All the while a Customs and Border Patrol officer sitting in an SUV kept watch from a nearby hill.

This might be the last of Hainds’ big adventures.

“Momma says no,” he said.

Momma is Katia Cabides, his wife. She and their two young children helped start him off in the mornings during parts of the trip, and met him when he was done for the day.

“I’m ready go back home,” Katia Cabides said. It was hard to be apart while he was on the trail, and she worried about her husband’s safety and health but was happy that he was doing something he thought was important. Still, it was difficult, she said.

“For me, I have to learn do to things by myself,” she said. “And suddenly, I was alone. What if something happened to him? Then I’m going to be a single mother.”

And then she pointed to her belly — they have a third child on the way.

“Now, I’m happy. I’m finally finished and we can go home,” she said.

Hainds has two books in the works — the first is about his walk that ended in 2014 and is currently with his publisher. The second, which will be based on his latest hike, will be about the people he encountered along the border, their lives and their stories living at the edge of the country. He kept a journal along the way.

“I think they feel ignored by the rest of the country, that they’re overlooked. I’m going to give them a voice,” he said.

They feel like they are misunderstood, and that a lot of the country incorrectly believes that they live in a war zone, he said. Parts of the border, particularly near big cities, seemed better off than many other parts of the country.

“I’ve walked through these big cities, and I feel much safer than I do in some of the Midwest,” he said.

He started the trip for a simple reason: to get away from the daily grind. He had had enough of his routine as a college forestry professor and working at a nonprofit organization, and all the emails, phone calls and text messages he was getting. He still works but planned his trip around his professional obligations.

“I just kind of reached a breaking point where I couldn’t stick with it any longer,” he said.

Sometimes that will encourage people to start a new career, or pick up a new hobby. When Hainds got that feeling, he retreated to the wilds of the Amazon, or the Pantanal in Brazil. But this time when the urge struck, he was reading Cormac McCarthy, a novelist whose stories are often set in west Texas.

“I think that inspired my imagination,” he said. “Another part — might sound kind of silly — I was kind of overwhelmed with people, with all these emails and faxes. And I looked at cell phone coverage in west Texas, and it was one of the biggest holes in the United States. They can’t get me there.”

A drug tunnel under construction was discovered Tuesday morning by Baja State Police in an unusual area of Tijuana.

The tunnel was found in a nondescript structure across the street from one of Baja’s largest cemeteries, about a mile west of the San Ysidro border crossing.

Most of the tunnels that have been discovered have been further east in the Otay Mesa area, where the soil is softer, sandier and easier to plow through.

According to investigators, the usual suspects — members of a Mexican drug cartel — are involved.

Five people have been arrested in connection with the discovery.

Michael Lettieri of the Trans-Border Institute says while drug tunnels continue to be used primarily to smuggle marijuana into the U.S., it’s actually an old strategy.

“Cartels are making most of their money, and what they’re fighting over now, is increasing the heroin and meth into this country. Heroin and methamphetamines are really easy to smuggle in cars, in water bottles. It’s small, it’s compact and it has tremendous value once it gets across for a very small amount,” said Lettieri.

Lettieri said cartels are likely to turn to other smuggling strategies such as catapults, submarines and drones to get drugs north of the border.

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Sunday noonish vehicle accident on westbound Av Internacional in Tijuana caused a geyser of water to slow vehicles on the big hill leading toward Playas de Tijuana. Nice to see that water pressure in this area is excellent.

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Bajadock: Have been through the stretch of hwy 94 and Otay Lakes Road dozens of times. Good news is that it is not highly populated, if they can prevent fire from spreading to Dulzura. Fire location is very close to the CBP checkpoint on 94. Hwy 94 closure from Honey Springs Road over to 188(Tecate border crossing) will be painful for locals. Fire season is upon us, so be careful out there.

A wildfire burning south of Jamul had scorched more than 1,000 acres by Saturday night and was threatening Dulzura.

Residents in Dulzura were alerted to the possible need to evacuate their homes, and some did. The Viejas casino parking lot on Interstate 8 at Willows Road was designated as a temporary evacuation point, where Red Cross volunteers offered food and water.

The Red Cross later set up an overnight shelter at Otay Ranch High School, at 1250 Olympic Pkwy in Chula Vista.

Authorities sealed off several backcountry roads and evacuated a campground as wind-swept flames roared through rolling, grassy hills at a “dangerous rate,” Cal Fire said within an hour of the fire’s start.

Residents with animals in the path of the fire should leave early and take pets with them, advised Dan DeSousa, director of the county Department of Animal Services. If help is needed to evacuate animals, owners can call the agency’s 24-hour emergency line at (619) 236-2341.

Dulzura residents who left their homes were not allowed back in until about 10 p.m., when fire officials deemed it safe enough for them to be on the road with a sheriff’s deputy escort.

The blaze, called the Gate fire, broke out south of Otay Lakes Road and west of state Route 94, near a Border Patrol checkpoint, about 11:20 a.m.

A fast moving brushfire burns near Jamul on Saturday, May 20, 2017.

Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire. It started on a dirt road off SR-94 leading to a Bureau of Land Management recreational area commonly used for target shooting, Cal Fire Capt. Isaac Sanchez said. He said the dirt road is behind a local landmark pink gate, which was chosen for the fire’s name.

It was 20 percent contained as of 9 p.m. as crews battled hot, dry conditions.

SR-94 was shut down between Honey Springs Road and state Route 188, and Otay Lakes Road was closed between Wueste Road and SR-94. Residents were not being allowed through. Motorists are advised to avoid the area.

Winds pushed the blaze west toward Pio Pico RV Resort and Campground, which was evacuated early on as a precaution. Campers were directed to the Eastlake Walmart parking lot in Chula Vista.

County animal control officers rescued one dog from the campground because no owner was there, DeSousa said. They were returning later in the day to rescue a dog heard inside a trailer. An animal control officer also went to the Walmart to see if campground evacuees there needed anything.

The San Diego Humane Society also sent a response team to the Otay Ranch High evacuation center with food and supplies for pets.

Late Saturday night, Cal Fire sent out a notice that Pio Pico would remain closed because of fire damage to certain park infrastructure.

The fire pushed north close to the edge of Otay Lakes Road as fire crews worked to make sure flames did not jump the road.

A late-afternoon shift in the breezes then sent flames southeast, toward the community of Dulzura, Sanchez said. He said mostly grass with some sparse brush was burning, and air tankers did a good job laying down a barrier of fire retardant to slow the fire’s spread.

The San Diego County emergency website noted that at 6:30 p.m., the following emergency message was sent to 77 contacts by the Sheriff’s Department: “There is a fire in the area of Dulzura. The wind is blowing to the East and there is a concern that the fire may spread to your area. You are being advised to be ready to evacuate if notified to do so. You may evacuate now if you choose to do so. The evacuation route is Highway 94 East to Buckman Springs North to Interstate 8 West. Take interstate 8 West to East Willows Road. Exit East Willows Road and turn right(north). Continue West on East Willows Road to the Viejas Casino. The Red Cross will have a temporary evacuation center located in the casino parking lot. This a fire warning only, not an evacuation order.”

Updates on the site are available at sdcountyemergency.com.

A Chula Vista police officer who was directing traffic near Otay Lakes and Wueste was struck by a vehicle about 2:30 p.m., suffering serious but not life-threatening injuries, police said. The officer, who has been on the force 2½ years, was taken to a hospital.

Five air tankers and three helicopters made numerous water and retardant drops on fire all afternoon. Fire crews from several agencies were helping on the ground.

Smoke from the blaze could be seen from many parts of the county.

Temperatures reached 91 degrees by 1 p.m. in the area with 10 percent relative humidity, according to the National Weather Service. Winds were light but gusting to 21 mph. The forecast was for slightly cooler temperatures on Sunday, with a high of 86, but just as breezy as Saturday.

In a separate area at the other end of the county, a blaze that broke out Friday afternoon on the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base had burned an estimated 500 acres as of Saturday afternoon. It was 75 percent contained and not threatening any structures, base officials tweeted. The fire started in a northeast section of the base, off De Luz Road.

Fire officials have been warning San Diego County residents for months that this summer could be an especially bad season for wildfires, after heavy winter rains encouraged thick growth of tall grasses and brush. Residents near canyons and in rural settings are encouraged to trim vegetation back to 100 feet from homes and take other fire-safety precautions.

Homicide investigations in Baja California are not very effective and business leaders’ concerns over worsening violence are justified, state and municipal authorities admitted yesterday.

Attorney General Perla del Socorro Ibarra told a conference in Tijuana that her staff are working 24 hours a day, but in percentage terms the effectiveness of their efforts “is not high” because of the high number of cases.

There have been more than 500 homicides in Tijuana so far this year.

The violence prompted business leaders to issue an SOS on Monday. The president of a citizens’ council on state security warned at a press conference that Baja California “is becoming a lawless state.”

“This,” said Juan Manuel Hernández Niebla, “is an SOS.”

Another business leader called for a single-command police force coordinated by the Army that would be capable of “attacking the organized crime structure.”

Kurt Honold Morales said there is no sign of effectiveness in the actions by security forces.

Also at yesterday’s conference, a forum on addictions and security at the Autonomous University of Baja California, Tijuana’s Public Security Secretary commented that authorities must listen to the complaints.

Marco Antonio Sotomayor agreed that they are justified. He said the municipality has “a very clear strategy, and one that has been strengthened, but it is also true that we have not achieved the results we wanted.”

Containing the violence was one of the desired results but that, he said, has not been accomplished.

Sotomayor observed that there have been successes operationally speaking, citing the seizure last weekend of 15 firearms.

Alarm to industrial wave of violence

General information

Ensenada BC – Wednesday, May 17, 2017 –by AFN.

ENSENADA BC, MAY 17, 2017 (AFN) .- Jorge Eduardo Cortés Ríos, president of the National Chamber of the Transformation Industry of Ensenada (Canacintra), called on the authorities of the three orders of government to establish a strategy Effective way to stop the wave of violence in the Entity.

The president of Canacintra reported that in addition to the killings, there are cases of extortion, express kidnappings, business robbery, vehicle theft, land collection, many of them not reported by the victims due to fear or lack of results.

He urged that concrete measures be taken, with targets and defined dates, coordinated by security corporations, that the Police Operations Center (COP) cameras be repaired and that they join the Communication and Command Center (C4).

“It is also urgent that the contracting, training, equipment and control of the municipal police be strengthened, that the failures of the New Criminal Justice System that favor impunity, that the crimes be clarified and punish the criminals be corrected.

In an event that he described as unprecedented for Ensenada, he said, “we are returning to levels of violence that we believed had already been overcome, requiring real and effective coordination between federal, state and municipal police corporations with the armed forces. Leave to these all the responsibility “.

“The perception of insecurity, unfortunately justified by the figures, places a high risk on investment and tourism, one of the few sectors that have maintained some economic dynamism in recent years and could inhibit some projects in this area, which Would be disastrous for the economy, “said Cortes Ríos.

The industrialist insisted on the urgency of stopping the criminal wave, investigating and punishing those responsible, to prevent other countries from continuing to issue alerts to stop their citizens from traveling to Mexican states and cities with high levels of violence.

He recalled that since mid-2016, there are restrictions on the part of the United States Department of State so that Americans do not travel to destinations like Baja California and the municipality of Ensenada.Added that just this April 22 the United Kingdom also issued a recommendation to its citizens, a situation that inhibits the arrival of visitors from that country to the region, insisted the leader.

To date, 58 people are reported killed in the municipality;Which has caused alarm in the industrial sector of Ensenada by the large number of victims, but also by the negative effects that it may have on the economy of the already repressed region.

He indicated that according to information collected, 30 crimes have been committed in the southern part of the municipality, 28 in the urban spot, in the conurbation zone and in the Valle de Guadalupe, so far in 2017;Which he said far exceeded the total number of homicides committed throughout 2016, he said.

Cortes Ríos stated that the most worrying of all is the upward trend, since only in the last week have been registered at least three murders in the northern rural area;Another alarming figure is the number of women who died violently, who already number 12, a situation that generates even greater uncertainty among the population.

In order for the city to progress, it requires investments, that existing companies can operate without surprises, that there are more jobs, generate taxes;But for that, a climate of tranquility free of violence is required, “said Jorge Eduardo Cortés Ríos.

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Had a friend needing my limo services from Ensenada to San Diego airport yesterday. She had never done the Otay Mesa pedestrian crossing, so I gave her my best verbal description on our commute. Above photo shows the Otay Sentri entry and the spot to drop of your non-Sentri passenger. It’s approx 200 yards from the ped drop to the ped crossing gate, then another 200 yard hike to meet your vehicle on the USA side.

Northern Baja map showing border crossing options and routing.Northbound to San Diego I use the TJ Free Road to either San Ysidro approx 80% and Otay approx 20%.

My preferred route from Ensenada to the Otay crosssing is the TJ Free Road(North Rosarito Exit) that is a direct route to the TJ Airport and Otay(see my white dot plot). Many friends prefer Blvd 2000(amber route), but I find that road to be no fun and it takes longer.

That Free Rd to Otay route also includes a clean rest stop, approx 1/2 mile north of the Rosarito Toll Booth. Unusual and unfortunate that the men’s room this Wednesday was “no papel”, so always have your spare roll of TP in your vehicle when traveling Baja! That rest stop also has a snack shop with coffee.

This was the scene at theRosarito rest stop Wednesday mornign with birds and squirrels enjoying the peanuts these ladies were offering. Lucky pajaros and ardillas were enthusiastic about gourmet breakfast.

From the Free Road/TJLibre/North Rosarito exit, it is approx 7 miles to this Airport right turn. From this spot in above photo, you will wind through a commercial area and the big hill climb at the U.S. embassy that will lead you to the TJ airport. It is 7 miles from above photo to Blvd Bellas Artes at Otay crossing.

If you need more detail on Otay and the 8 photo locations in above map, click here

Back to Otay, that road bordering the east side of TJ Airport leads you to the regular lane, Ready Lane and SENTRI. This entry to SENTRI is funky as the area has been under construction. Instead of the bridge ramp after the Ready Lane Entry, meander right into the alley in the industrial area. Mariscos Negro Durazo is on the corner, photo spot #2 in map above.

I have labeled it “Rumble Alley”, so just ease through the pot holes. It will lead you to Blvd Bellas Artes headed east and ready to enter SENTRI lane. Mariscos Negro Durazo on corner is blue building.

This overhead map mimics the first photo above in this post showing ped entry to Otay crossing. The idea is to drop your non-Sentri passenger before you vehicle is visible to Sentri lanes. According to rumor, Sentri frowns on this practice, but, I see all sorts of vehicles dropping passengers close to gate crossing, then U-turning back to TJ. Hmmm. And have your ped passenger cross with one bag on hand to ease credibility. Jacket/sweater was also suggested as that office can be cold with A/C. Got passport?

You cross in SENTRI vehicle lane, take first exit right(Siempre Viva Rd) and plan your meeting spot with your ped passenger on north side of border. Make certain you plan a specific spot, as a friend of mine depended upon Mex cell service once for meetup w/ their ped passenger. OOPS!

My friend mentioned one point of confusion, yesterday. Two signs at ped crossing office were “SENTRI” and READY”. WhereTheF does a “regular lane” pauper cross? Just blame poor signage and pester a guard.

After the Ped crossing, your passenger should simply follow the others on the sidewalk for approx 200 yds north to your vehicle in the car queue. Yep that spot has a red line on the curb, but I have never been hassled. Or if the ped line wait looks long, Erik’s Deli is a decent, clean spot to rendezvous.

I’m usually crossing Otay at approx 10am-noon, so the rush hour commute is finished. Max I have ever waited for my ped passenger here is 20 minutes. That sure beats waiting in the Ready or Regular vehicle lineup for 2 hours.

Dia de las Madres(10 May) in Mex was likely the reason for an extremely expeditious ped crossing. I waited 5 minutes max for my friend to meet me on the other side Wednesday. She said they did not ask one question at the ped crossing. She scanned her passport and she was FREE!